Mortifactors Primaris Space Marine Lieutenant

So, I have returned to Mortifactors, albeit briefly, with my Mortifactors Primaris Space Marine Lieutenant. It was a lot of fun to resurrect the various techniques involved in painting this guy, and while I’m not intending to dive back into Guilliman’s weirdest sons just yet, I’m pretty sold on painting up my other Primaris marines in these colours. Let’s take a closer look.

It’s a glorious miniature. As soon as the contents of the Dark Imperium box were released, this chap caught my eye. This was the one that I wanted to paint more than any others. Back in 2nd Ed days, I had a Space Marine Lieutenant miniature. It was lead, and it had a bionic foot, but I don’t recall much more than that. Well this guy is a billion times better. Easy to assemble, a great, dramatic pose, and I can confirm to anyone who hasn’t seen one of these guys, that the Primarines are huge. I should have taken a comparison shot, but there are enough of those about these days. But a big thumbs up from me on the sculpt.

Speaking of the shots themselves, do forgive the slightly crappy photography. I updated my mac’s OS and now, whenever I plug the Canon camera into the computer, it invokes the spinning beachball of death, so these were done with my iPhone’s basic camera. Hopefully normal service will resume soon.

Going back to the miniature, really I was just relieved to discover that I’ve not forgotten how to paint Mortifactors. I think it’s been a couple of years since I last delved into ‘warm bone’ or ‘Posul bronze’ (as I used to call them) but I seem to remember all the basics. Good to know that black is still a pain in the ass to paint over large areas – would have hated for that to have changed.

And painting skulls is still fun. The first one, on the knee, was a bit of a trial, but I really enjoyed working on the one on the shoulder pad. On the opposing shoulder is some script work – I think I did rather a good ‘M’ for that, though yellow on black is still a right pain sometimes. When you think you’re done, you realise that it’s gone green and then you have to go over it again. Yawn.

It was interesting doing this. Like a walk down memory lane into the future. Going back to Mortifactors after so much time painting Blood Angels and Blood Bowl teams was like driving past a house you used to live in – full of memories and nice to see once in a while. But working on a Primaris Marine for the first time really made me look to the future. I think there will be some amazing things to come from GW in the 40K universe and I look forward to painting the rest of this set – can’t wait to do that Ancient’s standard – three guesses what I’m going to paint onto the central part. 😉

And that’s your lot. I’ll be getting back to my Orc Blood Bowl team next (still a lot to do on that front) but I may dip into the Dark Imperium box again if I feel I need a break. Thanks for tolerating the dodgy photos – onwards!

3 comments on “Mortifactors Primaris Space Marine Lieutenant”

Hey man, I’m a huge fan of your Mortifactors! You’re work is amazing. I was wondering if you could give me a bit of a painting guide? I’m trying to join the bone and black, but the colours can be messy.

Thanks for saying so! Glad you like them. As for the joins between bone and black, that’s where washes come in. Get your base coats down and then apply your wash to the bone areas (I use reikland flesh shade but others prefer seraphim sepia or agrax earthshade) Then, when you start bringing the bone colour back up, just be as neat as possible and where black meats bone, leave this shaded. Washes hide a multitude of sins. Other than that, neatness and practice are the key. I hope that helps! Cheers.